BILL ON DISMISSAL OF ACCUSED TEACHERS VETOED BY GOVERNOR

Sacramento 
Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday vetoed what he termed an “imperfect” union-backed bill intended to streamline the dismissal of teachers accused of misconduct, calling on lawmakers to try again next year.

The bill, AB375 by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, was approved by lawmakers a year after a more stringent measure died in the state Assembly after opposition by the state’s main teachers union.

Both measures responded to last year’s arrest of a Los Angeles elementary schoolteacher who was charged with nearly two-dozen counts of engaging in lewd conduct with students, including allegations he blindfolded his students and fed them his semen in what he described as a tasting game. Former Miramonte third-grade teacher Mark Berndt has pleaded not guilty. The Los Angeles Unified School District fired him but then paid him $40,000 to drop his appeal of the dismissal. Parents of some of the children in his classes over the years have filed lawsuits, claiming Miramonte and district administrators ignored complaints about improper behavior by Berndt dating back more than a decade.

Brown applauded some of the proposed changes in Buchanan’s bill, including provisions that would let school districts file disciplinary complaints during summer recesses and eliminate some other hurdles that can delay discipline and dismissals. But he said in a veto message that other portions of the bill, which was supported by the California Teachers Association, “make the process too rigid and could create new problems.” Provisions limiting testimony in disciplinary hearings and preventing school districts from amending complaints based on new evidence “may do more harm than good,” Brown said.